Usap Forum 2008 Recap
The theme for the Usap Forum 2008 was "USAP in the Global Village". The forum was held at the University of Pennsylvania from the 30th of May to the 2nd of June in Philadelphia.
Forum Pictures
Speakers Presentation Summaries
Please click on the images to see more pictures.
Below are summaries of some of the presentations by our speakers.
Speakers Presentation Summaries
Global Health and Economic Policies Panel
Dean Glandt and the Four Traits of Leadership
Global Health and Economic Policies Panel with Wendy Voet, M.P.H. and Donald Silberberg, M.D.
By Bernard Londoni & Tafadzwa Muguwe
Global health is arguably the preeminent issue of our times. At one of the Usap Forum panels on the afternoon of Saturday, May 31st 2008, Wendy Voet and Donald Silberberg discussed global health and economic policies. Voet's presentation was titled "Implementing USAID funded programs in low resource settings: best practice and lessons learned." Voet helped the audience gain insight into what happens behind the scenes at non governmental organizations (NGOs) as well as funding organizations such as the USAID. Voet previously worked as program officer responsible for infant and maternal health at JHPIEGO, an international health organization affiliated with Johns Hopkins University. At JHPIEGO, Voet was involved in a USAID-funded program to revise family planning guidelines for the Zimbabwe National Family Planning Council (ZNFPC). Unfortunately, the project was aborted following some political problems. According to Voet, her frustrating experience with the Zimbabwe project is not unusual, but illustrates some of the challenges that are faced by non-governmental organizations (NGOs) in administering public health projects. A good number in the audience expressed concern that politics would get in the way of humanitarian efforts and there was general consensus that a notion of common responsibility should be cultivated in order to address challenges facing the world today.
Another difficult challenge faced by NGOs is the requirement by funding organizations such as USAID that NGOs should use grants to provide "technical assistance" to ministries of health and education in developing countries. This requirement can prove too rigid for ministries which may simply need financial support for their homegrown programs rather than technical expertise per se. Sometimes there is complete lack of agreement between ministries of health and the USAID regarding the way forward. Yet another challenge facing NGOs is the short length of grant cycles which are typically about 5 years long with no guarantee of renewal. As a result, many long term projects are left incomplete when funding runs out, and sometimes there is duplication of efforts as old projects lose their funding to newer ones carrying a similar mission. Finally, the issue of brain drain was discussed as one of the unintended consequences of NGO involvement in developing countries. NGOs tend to pay better salaries than public health systems for the same kinds of jobs, which promotes "internal brain drain", whereby skilled personnel leave the public system for NGO programs. Although NGOs may achieve their programmatic targets, this can happen at the expense of broader public health needs.
A key point of Dr. Silberberg's talk was that the global health field is interdisciplinary. Thus anyone can contribute to solving global health problems, regardless of whether they are medical practitioners or public health experts. Silberberg asserted that people from various academic disciplines including African Studies, Policy, Management and others, are important as they bring wide ranging expertise to the global health field. For anyone interested in learning more about preparing to work in low income countries, Silberberg offered some internet resources, most of which can be accessed through UPenn website.
Dean Glandt and the Four Traits of Leadership
Opening morning at the just ended Usap conference was lit up by the entertaining Eduardo Glandt, current Dean at the University of Pennsylvania School of Engineering and Applied Science, who spoke about four traits of leadership. The four traits discussed were integrity, generosity, enterprise, and maturity. Dean Glandt used examples from the US and his native Argentina to illustrate his points.
According to Dean Glandt, the first trait of leadership is integrity, which he finds to be lacking in most parts of the world outside the US. In any society, integrity is necessary for social contracts to function. For instance, newspaper vendors in the US can do business through unmanned newspaper cabinets at street corners because citizens can be trusted to take only as many newspapers as they pay for. If citizens lacked integrity, such glass cabinets would not be a viable tool for business. In certain countries, such a business model would surely fail. Dean Glandt said stringent penalties against defaulters are necessary to ensure that the social contract is honored.
The second trait of leadership is generosity. In many parts of the world, generosity is thought to be a mere luxury of the wealthy. Instead, Dean Glandt believes that anyone who has done well should consider giving back to society as a responsibility. Regarding the third trait of leadership, enterprise, Dean Glandt reminded those in attendance that the world has only so much wealth to be distributed, thus it is important to focus on creating wealth. True leaders display and foster the entrepreneurial spirit, leading to greater access to wealth for everyone.
The fourth trait of leadership is maturity, or the ability to act in a manner that is appropriate to the situation. Maturity in communication would involve being able to use the appropriate vocabulary or narrative depending on whom one is interacting with. The example of a baby who cries regardless of whose attention they seek was used to illustrate immaturity. Dean Glandt encouraged those in attendance to get to know many people and connect with them appropriately; keeping in mind that networking is valuable in this age of globalization.